BEST of BE Festival (17/18 October) features four productions per performance: From the Waltz to the Mambo by Radioballet, a ‘disarmingly straightforward, funny, and personal meeting’ of a vintage text and a contemporary performance from Hungarian dance artist Milán Újvári; Beating McEnroe, a crazed performance by Jamie Wood (UK) about being a younger brother and a bad loser. The final point of an epic Wimbledon final is re-lived with the audience as a cathartic ritual of rivalry, love and moving on; Loops & Breaks by Austrian improviser Julia Schwarzbach, in which the artist invites the audience to make the action by responding to a series of shifting instructions prepared specially for the crowd; and Waiting by Mokhallad Rasem, in which different worlds clash quietly through traces of dance, performance and film in a meditation upon the human experience of waiting.
As part of the evening’s proceedings, the ticket price includes a festival dinner with fellow audience members and performers.
Loops and Breaks, pic Alex Brenner
Different worlds clash quietly through traces of dance, performance and film in a meditation upon the human experience of waiting.
After the Best of BE there’s the award-winning The Events (22-25 October) presented by the Actors’ Touring Company, which was named Best New Play of 2013 by The Guardian after its world premiere at that year’s Edinburgh Festival. David Greig’s moving and uplifting play asks why do terrible things happen? Featuring Derbhle Crotty as the vicar, Claire, and Clifford Samuel, The Events asks how far forgiveness can go in the face of an appalling atrocity, and features a local choir at each performance.
The Event, pic David Levine
Finally, the snappily-titled Insomnia, a pas de deux drama for two girls and a piano man from Riotous Company (6/7 November), is a dance-theatre piece full of humorous, ironic, and captivating moments for children, adults and insomniacs. Insomnia weaves together strands of physical and musical storytelling, leaving it up to the audience to decipher the actions and inventions, or simply enjoy the performers’ ongoing excuses to stay awake. Insomnia is accompanied by a live score performed by award-winning Macedonian composer Nikola Kodjabashia, who created the music for HOME’s Romeo & Juliet, and directed by Tage Larsen from the renowned Odin Teatret in Denmark. The ticket price includes a one-hour master-class led by the creative team (Fri 7 November, 16:30), and a post-show discussion each evening entitled ‘making cross-art theatre’.
The final piece in the run-up to the opening of the new building is re:play Festival 2015 (12-24 January 2015) celebrating the best of Manchester and Salford’s fringe theatre. re:play’s move to First Street marks the return of the annual festival, established by the Library Theatre Company, to the city centre for the first time since 2009.
All the productions will be presented at the Second Floor, Number One First Street, Manchester M15 4FN.
